The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.11 standard puts forward a wireless sensor network application scenario powered by batteries. This application scenario imposes higher requirements on a power saving feature of a WiFi (Wireless Fidelity, wireless fidelity) terminal. In the current standard, a terminal not associated with an AP (Access Point) needs to receive all physical layer frames on a monitored channel when discovering a WiFi network. Each physical layer frame is composed of a frame header part and a data part. The terminal receives the physical layer frames on the monitored channel, and parses the physical layer frames to determine which physical layer frame carries a network discovery message, that is, the data part of which physical layer frame includes a MAC (Medium Access Control, medium access control) layer frame applicable to network discovery, such as a Beacon frame or a Probe response frame, so that the terminal can obtain WiFi access point information therefrom.
In the process of implementing the present invention, the inventor finds that the prior art has at least the following problems:
When performing network discovery, the terminal unassociated with the AP needs to parse all physical layer frames on the monitored channel, and needs to parse the frame header part and the data part. Only when the data part of the physical layer frame is parsed and the MAC (Medium Access Control, medium access control) layer data included therein is obtained, the terminal can judge whether the data part of the physical layer frame includes a MAC layer frame applicable to network discovery, thereby determining whether the physical layer frame is a physical layer frame that carries a network discovery message and is used for network discovery. Therefore, when the terminal unassociated with the AP performs network discovery, the process of parsing the data part of physical layer frames that include no network discovery message consumes much power.